


The spaces in between

by i_mperfect



Category: Pro Wrestling NOAH
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Loneliness, Longing, M/M, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:35:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28108671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_mperfect/pseuds/i_mperfect
Summary: What happens after everything falls apart? Snapshots from life after Axiz. Sequel (of sorts) to Everlong.
Relationships: Nakajima Katsuhiko/Shiozaki Go
Comments: 12
Kudos: 6





	1. November 2020

It’s amazing what you can learn to live with. The silences. The absence. How you can keep going with pieces missing. They both have enough experience with that anyway. Not everything has a resolution. There comes a point where picking your way through the loose threads and the dead ends doesn’t leave you lost any more.

And there are smiles, laughter, real happiness. And it doesn’t always hurt afterwards. Some memories even feel sweet again. That there are some pieces still in-tact helps and hurts in equal measure. Something to cling to can also serve to remind you that you are drowning or, at the very least, only treading water. Waiting.

Of course, there are bad days. Days where nostalgia hits, the sensation of almost feeling the warmth of that other person, arms snaked around waists, whispered words…the cold realisation that taking that back could take a lifetime, if it were even possible. It doesn’t always feel possible.

For Go, it’s seeing Katsu with the trainees. Seeing him through their eyes and seeing him find something of himself in that. Learning and unlearning. It’s a journey that’s no longer his to share in. Their lives running parallel now, instead of so messily yet perfectly entwined.

For Katsu, it’s simply not being at Go’s side. Watching his achievements from on a screen or from an equally insurmountable distance feels so alien. Even when it wasn’t obvious to him or anyone else he’s always been there. Navigating Go’s absence trips him up constantly. But, like learning to walk again, it’s becoming easier. He dreads the day it becomes habit. 

Other days are easy, natural, exciting even. There are more possibilities and more things to keep them busy. There is very real hope in so much of what they do now. Impossible not to also hold onto the hope that a way forward for them doesn’t come at the cost of erasing the past. Right now, their hopes are vague, formless things, hiding behind more immediate priorities. But they are there to be seen, whenever one of them catches the other looking too long or shaking off a memory, they can see it. And it sustains them. Just enough. Not all the threads are loose ends.

But mostly it is mundane, simple. Go barely notices as he walks past the box of Katsu’s things he put by the door and then could never bring himself to actually part with. Katsu no longer regularly checks whether Go has deleted the word ‘Axiz’ from his twitter profile. Their anger has become muted, injuries put aside, if not forgotten. There are enough functional, ordinary things to discuss when they meet that they can justify to themselves all the things still left unsaid. Walking the corridors is no longer weighted with guilt or longing, just bodies passing. Bodies who know each other too well perhaps. Physical contact they both still avoid, knowing that the defences they have constructed are not yet strong enough for that. But maybe one day they will be. They are trying.


	2. December 2020

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tokyo Sports Awards results. Go misses out on being awarded MVP, winning an Outstanding Performance Award instead. Noah fans, wrestlers and friends are angered by the decision. As is Go, though he can't say quite so much publicly. But there are people who understand.

It hurt more than he could allow himself to feel that the message didn’t come from Go. That he hadn’t asked for him personally. But anyway, Go responded immediately to his message, ‘where are you?’, with a time, a place.

He’d been there, within touching distance, for almost every important moment of this year. He knew what this year cost. How could he not go to him now?

Seeing him leaning, slightly slumped, against the edge of the low wall, his jacket not pulled nearly tight enough for this December wind, causes a tightness in Katsu’s chest he can’t shake. Go’s phone in his hands, presumably responding to the hundreds of messages he must be getting. A slight frown, fingers moving rapidly over the screen. This shouldn’t be what today is for him. And if it has to be, then he should have been here, beside him. But then again, if he had been, would this even have been possible to imagine? Katsu considers that maybe he has been an anchor for Go in ways that have held him back as much as they kept him steady.

Go looks up, sees him approaching. Sidles along the wall to make space for him, even as he purses his lips at his phone, sighing and sliding it into his pocket. Katsu sits on the wall, taking the space offered.

They sit in silence, side by side, not touching. Trying, quietly, to find that feeling, the just being together that used to be so natural. The comfort that came from that. An elusive feeling and one that escapes them still, overwhelmed instead by tension, anger, exhaustion. For once not directed at each other but nonetheless amplifying this small distance, the closest they have been in weeks.

Katsu clears his throat.

Go speaks before he can fumble his way through the words he’s been putting together for hours, an edge to his voice but not directed at him.

Don’t tell me it’s bullshit. You know. _You know_ why I needed this. Now.

I know.

I can’t…I don’t have anything more. This is it for me. I have my limits.

Katsu smiles slightly at that, the fears he had about not being able to bridge the gap they had put between each other suddenly evaporating. Go was just Go. He knows him better than he knows himself. Still.

I’ve been trying to find your limits for years. You have more. You always have more.

Go snorts, looking for a moment like he might laugh, before a cloud seems to pass over him again and he looks away. Katsu feels his fist clenching inside his coat pocket, like he wants to tear down everything that has brought him here, to this. He would. But Go doesn’t need him to fight his battles. He’s here because he knows about the battles Go fights that he doesn’t share with anyone else. The ones he has had the privilege to understand. That intimacy doesn’t earn him the right to anything else right now and he’d do anything to change the circumstances that mean they are reminded of it but that he can still do something, anything…it’s hopeful.

Silence settles over them again. Go, voice quieter, private

Why does everything have to be just out of reach?

Almost without thinking, Katsu finds himself standing, wrapping his arms around this man who has been so painfully out of reach for months. He expected resistance, but instead Go just melts into him, like there had never been any space between them at all. His hands reaching around under his coat, wrapping around his waist. Not pulling but just there, the cold of Go’s fingers seeping through his clothes. He rests his chin on Go's head, feeling him pressing his face into the warmth of his chest.

It won’t always be.

For a few brief moments time stands still, just Go’s breathing against his chest, his heartbeat. The smell of Go’s hair in his nostrils again, cutting through the chill in the air. The feeling of coming home that he’s desperately trying to hold at bay because this, he knows, is temporary.

Go fidgets slightly in his arms

..we shouldn’t..

Shut up. You get to rest. _We_ get to rest. Just for a minute. Then we can work out everything else.

He can feel Go tense slightly, then just let go, head nuzzling a little closer, fingers pressing into his back. He’s distantly aware of the feeling that this is everything he wants, has missed, has needed. But ultimately, this isn’t about what he wants so he can’t give in to that. Instead, he allows himself just one moment, one selfish moment, of closing his eyes, pressing his lips to Go’s head, breathing in, trying to hold all of this for when he needs it later. Then he lets go, letting the cold air rush between them.

Go straightens slightly, catches his eye. A half smile there. And an agreement that there are still some things that can’t be said.

Katsu slips his hands into his pockets, forces a smile and allows just a flash of the very deep anger he feels towards everyone who has kept this man from what he deserves, perhaps himself included, show on his face.

I understand. We all do. Don’t carry this alone, even though you can. We know you deserve more. You gave us all more.

But it’s not enough…

Go sighs. A long exhale that seems to drain him even further. Katsu runs through his head the words he wants to say, won’t say. _Let me take you home. Let me make you forget._ Settles on what he can say, no less honest.

You. Are. Enough.

Go looks up at him, eyes pained but also grateful. He sighs again, lighter this time, shakes his head slightly, smiling.

You still have a lot of faith in me

You still earn it

Go frowns slightly at that. It’s a statement that hardly fits with the events of the past few months. But the frown passes, he seems to accept it, the slightest hint of determination returning to the light in his eyes. Katsu smiles, not forced this time.

He steps back, giving Go space to stand up, away from the wall. Katsu gestures down the street with a tip of his head.

I assume they are waiting to get you drunk?

Go laughs. Nothing like the lightness of his usual laughter but it’s something. Katsu wonders which of them is trying to make the other feel better now.

Of course they are.

Good. You deserve it. You should go.

They stand, facing each other, each willing the other to be the first to move, to walk away. Katsu decides it should be him. He nods once more, trying to smile, turning away. He gets barely two paces before he hears Go

I hoped it might be us you know. Our match. Or if things were different…

Somehow that cuts through. He has to stop. Blink back the sting in his eyes before he can turn around.

I know. Me too.

For a second Go looks like he might say something else. But he doesn’t, can’t. There are enough ‘what ifs’ to torment him as it is. That torment both of them. He pulls his jacket tighter, turns away towards the bar.


	3. January 2021

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I could give you what you need. If you could only learn to want it."

This moment was inevitable. Only a matter of time. And perhaps no amount of time will make this easy. 

Of course, Katsu is no longer first to touch. Being at the centre of things is not a position he can or will claim now. So his eyes follow both the men who can, since both present opportunities he should watch for. Go tries to watch him like he would watch anyone else, ignoring the selfishness that notices when Katsu’s eyes are elsewhere. Both blink back the familiarity of those moments when their eyes meet, though there is only so long that is possible. 

By mutual agreement they guard themselves against the worst of this. No small feat to erase the easy intimacy of their hands, falling instead into patterns of violence that are still heated but easier to ignore later. Sometimes they fail. Fingers that curl into hair they need not touch, a forehead pressed too close to ignore, a heat that has always come from their skin meeting and still won’t be wholly denied. Even in the simplest of motions there is memory that presses on them both. 

But at least for Go this moment offers a sort of closure, a chance to move past the same things that pull Katsu backwards. This story, their story, is but one part of his. For Katsu, at this moment, it is the only story. He feels the cruelty of being held, trapped, by a story he wanted to tell. Go seems as free as he ever was, the things that tie him weaved so deep he barely notices them. The resentment that stirs in Katsu is just as familiar as their touch. 

There’s a fine line between resentment and jealousy. And apparently none at all between wanting to give everything and take it all for yourself. A contradiction more easily navigated when they could share in each others’ happiness, take pride in standing together. Without that, there is nothing to soothe the bitterness of this moment for Katsu as it becomes obvious to him that he is in a position to neither give nor take. 

To an extent, Kongoh offers him a refuge. But it is not his refuge. Not that he is unused to existing in spaces that are not his own. But he feels a need to match Kenoh’s vigilance, to stay alert to the pull of Kenoh’s gravity, to find his own resistance, even as they work together. Go’s refuge is where it has always been, with the men beside him. A place he belongs. 

When Go finally walks away from the ring, he does so surrounded by the love and support that are his due, earned but also given. Perhaps a necessary reward for the weight he carries. Katsu storms away first, resentment temporarily consuming him, to the borders and the drive that is his inheritance, and to their weight, also earned but not always deserved. 

When his frustration dissipates there is the dawning realisation of something Go has already understood, that right now their connection serves neither of them in the separate paths they walk. But in his resentment there is still a thought.  _ I could give you what you need. If you could only learn to want it.  _


End file.
